Avatar: The Last Airbender
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Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
RftP: Harry Potter 7.5
Yeah...
Look, I know the reviews are generally positive but come on: this is a Michael Bay film if MB got a hard-on for landscapes instead of explosions. Worse, it's a Michael Bay film where he's completely forgotten how to shoot action sequences. Klove's script predictably moves along zestily, but leaves essentially no time for characterization and barely enough for plot development. Meanwhile, there are more than a few scenes where you get the feeling all Yates did was point at the actor and say "sit in chair, read script" while thinking "God, that hillside in the background is beautiful..."
When we finally do get to the actual Battle For Hogwarts, stopping off to meet Aberforth just long enough to skip the point of pretty much all of the original dialog for that scene, the whole thing is just a dizzying mess of fight cuts, Smokey from Lost flying around, and little to differentiate friend from foe unless they're 50' tall.
After seeing it, I realized something: my issue with these last few films hasn't been that they've deviated from the "source" (hell, I've openly advocated against trying the FHE 20 hours of show into 1:50 edit treatment in the past if necessary), but that they deviated in ways that are so obviously Executive Script Notes ("He betrayed Harry, we've gotta show him getting killed as proper punishment!" for an example), to fit it into "mold" that it's pretty much strangled the story for me as each and every one jumps off the screen.
Speaking of that, one reviewer said the 3D was inobtrusive. With all due respect, when I'm watching the 2D version and am like: "Oh... and here's where the pensieve gets to fly now just so we can throw it at the audience..." I'm gonna have to question what version of the movie they got to watch. One of these days I really have to do the Avatar 3D rant that's percolating in the back of my head.
My last word on this is that Harry Potter will probably make a really nice TV series someday. But for the love of god, lets stop letting people who just can't direct try and make movies from it.
Look, I know the reviews are generally positive but come on: this is a Michael Bay film if MB got a hard-on for landscapes instead of explosions. Worse, it's a Michael Bay film where he's completely forgotten how to shoot action sequences. Klove's script predictably moves along zestily, but leaves essentially no time for characterization and barely enough for plot development. Meanwhile, there are more than a few scenes where you get the feeling all Yates did was point at the actor and say "sit in chair, read script" while thinking "God, that hillside in the background is beautiful..."
When we finally do get to the actual Battle For Hogwarts, stopping off to meet Aberforth just long enough to skip the point of pretty much all of the original dialog for that scene, the whole thing is just a dizzying mess of fight cuts, Smokey from Lost flying around, and little to differentiate friend from foe unless they're 50' tall.
After seeing it, I realized something: my issue with these last few films hasn't been that they've deviated from the "source" (hell, I've openly advocated against trying the FHE 20 hours of show into 1:50 edit treatment in the past if necessary), but that they deviated in ways that are so obviously Executive Script Notes ("He betrayed Harry, we've gotta show him getting killed as proper punishment!" for an example), to fit it into "mold" that it's pretty much strangled the story for me as each and every one jumps off the screen.
Speaking of that, one reviewer said the 3D was inobtrusive. With all due respect, when I'm watching the 2D version and am like: "Oh... and here's where the pensieve gets to fly now just so we can throw it at the audience..." I'm gonna have to question what version of the movie they got to watch. One of these days I really have to do the Avatar 3D rant that's percolating in the back of my head.
My last word on this is that Harry Potter will probably make a really nice TV series someday. But for the love of god, lets stop letting people who just can't direct try and make movies from it.
Friday, July 8, 2011
TotD: I really should've cut this outside...
... because cleaning up after Lexan is a bitch. Little fragments of plastic everywhere...
Edit: Fuck me. I just spent an hour sweeping, vacuuming, and generally cleaning and I think I've finally got it all. Sometimes I really should drop my habit of choosing hardcore solutions when I build something. Never working with this stuff again.
At least, inside.
Edit: Fuck me. I just spent an hour sweeping, vacuuming, and generally cleaning and I think I've finally got it all. Sometimes I really should drop my habit of choosing hardcore solutions when I build something. Never working with this stuff again.
At least, inside.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Lazy Friday: Canada Day Classics
Who's on First is all you really need to know to get my sense of humour. My sense of wordplay and timing is nowhere near as good, and more warped, though.
Those of you who grew up in the early 90's probably know this homage better:
Thursday, June 30, 2011
TotD: Trending Followup....
The strike is over, the month ends, and Archaeology beats out anger at Postal Workers by a landslide.
WoW: Why Archaeology Sucks - 70 Pageviews
Rant: Fucking Canada Post - 43 Pageviews
It was kinda close for a while, but then someone dug me up for the forum again... and then someone else decided I was "noteworthy" enough to be listed as "Criticism" on WoWWiki soooo pissed off people without their mail fix got trounced by hyperlinks appealing to annoyed people at the right places.
Live and learn.
I won't be doing many of these stats type posts - mainly because the Arch post tends to steamroll anything else I've written by miles and, lets be honest, the numbers aren't exactly operating on Penny Arcade scales even then. But, I just found Public Sector Union Hatred VS Most Annoying Prof. ever to be too interesting a "competition", in a kinda dark humour way, to pass up.
Hopefully 4.3 brings some of the Arch. updates promised in the Dev Q&A.
WoW: Why Archaeology Sucks - 70 Pageviews
Rant: Fucking Canada Post - 43 Pageviews
It was kinda close for a while, but then someone dug me up for the forum again... and then someone else decided I was "noteworthy" enough to be listed as "Criticism" on WoWWiki soooo pissed off people without their mail fix got trounced by hyperlinks appealing to annoyed people at the right places.
Live and learn.
I won't be doing many of these stats type posts - mainly because the Arch post tends to steamroll anything else I've written by miles and, lets be honest, the numbers aren't exactly operating on Penny Arcade scales even then. But, I just found Public Sector Union Hatred VS Most Annoying Prof. ever to be too interesting a "competition", in a kinda dark humour way, to pass up.
Hopefully 4.3 brings some of the Arch. updates promised in the Dev Q&A.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Rant: Whoa... That's Gotta Hurt the Ego...
HMV Canada... a retail chain that did $320 Million in National sales last year... with 121 locations and their contents... sold to a "restructuring firm" for $3.2 Million.
Gotta say, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Always... and I mean always... undercut by its foes Best Buy, Future Shop, Walmart, even local indy stores and the now defunct Music World & Sams in both video and music it really should've died a long time ago. Yet, for some reason, despite getting shafted, people shopped there with regularity.
Until iTunes came along.
Now its scrambling - having sacrificed a third of its space to the gods of bargain clothing fare in an effort to pay the rent, its downtown Toronto "flagship" store on Yonge just north of the Eaton Centre is now down to only the core wing - because people aren't buying music on media anymore... or Movies... or TV Shows...
They've tried to deal with this by diversifying into Games and Books... just in time to see distribution there start to increasingly go digital as well...
Plan B is to try and take the company's website - which has meandered from in house... to an Amazon store... and, apparently, back in house again - and make it relevant.
Too late. The players are pretty solidly baked now. This is where HMV needs to pull it's head from its arse and very quickly identify what they can offer that no one else can. The problem for them is that, historically, that hasn't been price and the people who are interested in niche music can't carry a whole chain of stores (why you don't see big classical and jazz sections, for example, outside the core location).
So, it's pretty likely that the price this company got it for was exactly right because the most foreseeable outcome here is extinction.
If I'm at HMV, I'd be shaking the dust off my resume and those high enough on the food chain ought best to be cashing out their company pensions -> personal RRSP's before it all disappears to England and the Government's kind enough to tell you just how boned you now are.
Gotta say, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Always... and I mean always... undercut by its foes Best Buy, Future Shop, Walmart, even local indy stores and the now defunct Music World & Sams in both video and music it really should've died a long time ago. Yet, for some reason, despite getting shafted, people shopped there with regularity.
Until iTunes came along.
Now its scrambling - having sacrificed a third of its space to the gods of bargain clothing fare in an effort to pay the rent, its downtown Toronto "flagship" store on Yonge just north of the Eaton Centre is now down to only the core wing - because people aren't buying music on media anymore... or Movies... or TV Shows...
They've tried to deal with this by diversifying into Games and Books... just in time to see distribution there start to increasingly go digital as well...
Plan B is to try and take the company's website - which has meandered from in house... to an Amazon store... and, apparently, back in house again - and make it relevant.
Too late. The players are pretty solidly baked now. This is where HMV needs to pull it's head from its arse and very quickly identify what they can offer that no one else can. The problem for them is that, historically, that hasn't been price and the people who are interested in niche music can't carry a whole chain of stores (why you don't see big classical and jazz sections, for example, outside the core location).
So, it's pretty likely that the price this company got it for was exactly right because the most foreseeable outcome here is extinction.
If I'm at HMV, I'd be shaking the dust off my resume and those high enough on the food chain ought best to be cashing out their company pensions -> personal RRSP's before it all disappears to England and the Government's kind enough to tell you just how boned you now are.
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